Digimon: Rise of the Red Dragon
by eclipse2012
Summary: Celestia Stratus never expected her life to get turned upside down by an encounter with a creature from another world. Between making not-so-evil enemies and encountering new friends, she has her hands full. But she will soon discover that she can't have her foot in two worlds. It's either one or the other.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon, or any of its characters. All I own is my OCs, and partial bits of the storyline that I created. Otherwise, all credit for this story goes to the creators of the Digimon franchise. And if there are remotely any references to characters from other franchises (whether intentional or unintentional), they belong to their respective owners.**

**And now on with the story!**

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><p><strong>Digimon Rise of the Red Dragon<strong>

**Prologue**

Dark clouds marred the night sky. Rain pattered onto the ground, though the thick canopy of leaves redirected most of it. A loud rumble of thunder could be heard in the distance. A few seconds later, the rumbling was accompanied by a flash of lightning. The wind tore at the trees relentlessly.

However, where the forest would otherwise be silent during a storm of this magnitude, a lone figure raced beneath the thick canopy. Dark purple fur covered an almost dinosaur-like frame. Short, red claws protruded from the creature's stubby fingers, and the same went for the powerful hind legs. Its muzzle was white while the rest of its fur remained its standard purple color. The same could be said for the tip of its long tail. Underneath the canopy of leaves, the odd deck interface on its forehead gave off a dull glow. Yellow eyes searched the darkness around it wearily as it continued running. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

A chubby humanoid creature with a mushroom for hair leapt out of the brush to the creature's right. Reflexively, the creature lashed out with its stubby arms. The red claws ripped across the humanoid mushroom's midsection, and was promptly thrown to the side.

With a renewed sense of vitality, the purple creature continued running. It could not get caught.

That would be its demise.

However, just as that thought had flashed through its mind, what looked like an oversized butcher knife tore into its side. A pained yowl escaped the creature's maw as it was thrown against a tree from the sheer force of the blow.

As the creature got to its feet, a tall, humanoid stepped out from the shadows, accompanied by the mushroom creature from before, which now wore a dark glare. However, the creature didn't recognize the new flower-like creature with them.

A flash of lightning lit up the swordsman's face as it glared at the smaller creature in front of it. "It's useless trying to escape. Just give up," the humanoid proclaimed.

The purple-furred being staggered as another rumble of thunder echoed through the trees. It glanced at the side that had been hit. Aforementioned side bled out what looked like blue pixels profusely.

It looked back to the swordsman with as much determination it could muster. "N-no…" it began, "I won't."

The mushroom seemed to be aggravated by this response. "Ugh! Why don't you quit? You're a disgrace to the digital world! You don't deserve to live! Not after what your kind did to us!"

The creature blinked. _What are they talking about? What do they mean by "my kind?"_

"W-what did I ever do to you? I just want to live!"

The flower spoke next. "Your kind destroyed the old digital world with the X-antibody. Almost all of the old digimon died out. And your kind was responsible!"

_X- antibody? _"Look, I just want to live. Please, leave me alone."

"That's not possible. You must be deleted before you wreak havoc on the digital world," the swordsman protested.

"But what did I-"

The creature was cut off as the swordsman attempted to hit it with its sword. The purple creature leapt out of the way of the sword, but the flower lashed out with one of its many vines and knocked it forwards again.

The mushroom, which had been waiting a short distance away, threw a mushroom at the creature's feet, where it promptly exploded. The creature let out a cry of pain as it was knocked back.

The swordsman intervened and gave the furry creature a hard roundhouse kick to the back. Yet another cry of agony rippled from the creature's maw as it landed on the ground a few feet away.

As the trio of opponents closed in, the purple creature looked up. Through the canopy of trees, it could see that the storm had finally blown over, offering a view of a strange sphere in the night sky. Rays of purple light streamed out of the holes in the sphere's exterior.

_Well, at least I get a view of the real world before I die. _It thought solemnly.

It allowed its thoughts to go silent for a moment as it watched the image of the real world in the sky. Even though it knew its hunters were closing in, it couldn't bring itself to care.

_And to think I wanted to go there, _it sighed. _So much for that dream…_

The swordsman appeared in the creature's field of vision. "Any last words, beast?"

The creature shook its head.

The swordsman raised its sword. The creature squeezed its yellow eyes shut in hopes of drowning out the fear that had returned to haunt it. It didn't want to die.

But with its injuries, escape was impossible.

Just as the sword was about to come down, one of the creatures seemed to go on alert.

"We need to leave Dinohumon," the flower said, "one of the transfer beams is coming this way. Just leave it. It'll be dead soon anyway."

The swordsman, now known as Dinohumon, seemed to contemplate the flower's words. "Very well Blossomon. Mushroomon, let's go"

Mushroomon nodded, but not before giving the creature a glare. It ran off a moment later in order to pursue its companions, who had let a few seconds before.

It took a few sends for the creature to register that it was now alone. It opened up its eyes, but even that was beginning to take some effort.

_They left? It's not like it matters anyway. I'll be gone soon…_

It gazed back up at the visage of the real world. _I wish I could have gone. I've only ever heard stories of that place. I really wanted to see it for myself…_

The creature let its eyes slip shut as exhaustion began to overrun basic body functions. The seconds ticked by, and with each minute that passed, death seemed to loom closer to the purple being.

However, a soft hum brought the creature back to consciousness. It lifted its head slightly and opened its eyes again.

_What's that noise? _

A pink beam of pure light entered its vision.

_Oh crap._

It didn't have time to think another thought. Because at that moment, the pink light engulfed its body, and the strange creature disappeared from sight.

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><p><strong>In the real world<strong>

A young girl stared out of her bedroom window. Her glimmering blue eyes glinted in the light cast by the lamppost just outside her window. Rivulets of water streamed down her window's exterior, and thunder boomed in the distance.

For her, it was just a typical stormy night. It was nothing special.

How wrong she was.

A high-pitched beeping noise jerked her out of her thoughts. She shuddered, and quickly covered her ears with her hands.

_What is that?_ She thought, _It couldn't be my alarm. It's not even seven o'clock!_

However, at that moment, she noticed a strange glow emitted from under her bed. She peered over the edge of her mattress warily, not entirely sure that what was going on was a dream or not.

_Okay…this is just a dream. I'll probably wake up the instant I check what's under my bed._

Carefully, she got off of her bed and crouched down on her carpeted floor. She lifted the bed's skirt to get a look at what was causing the strange light.

_And I should wake up right…now! _She thought as she lifted the skirt.

However, it didn't go as she'd thought. The light was coming from a strange hand-held device she had never seen before. It was hard to tell what color it was from the bright light emitted from its screen, but that didn't matter to her. Why?

Because what was happening was paranormal. In her eyes, at least.

With no small amount of caution, she reached under the bed and wrapped her fingers around the device. As she pulled it out from under the bed, the light gradually faded until it was nothing but a soft glow from the illuminated screen.

Now that she could actually view the device in full, she had to admit, its design was odd. It was rectangular in shape and had a circular keypad with three small ovals extending off its upper diagonals. At the bottom, there was a small chain link, presumably to click it onto a bag or belt. The device was predominantly red with gold and black highlights around the screen and sides.

As she inspected it, a strange map was pulled up on its screen. She flinched slightly as the beeping sound, though much quieter now, began again. She peered at the map. It seemed to show her location and that of…something else.

Something she didn't know the identity of.

Luckily, the location the device indicated was just down the street from her house. It would be easy to go check it out, but getting out of the house without waking her parents was a different matter altogether.

_So I have two options, _she mused, _one, go check out what this…thing, is trying to lead me to. B, ignore it._

She rolled the thought over in her head for a minute before shrugging. Hey, curiosity killed the cat, but it wasn't going to kill her.

Yet.

Without a second thought, she snuck out of her room and headed to the staircase down the hall. She lightened her footsteps as much as she could so that she might avoid getting caught.

As she slipped into the living room, she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. So far, so good.

She tip-toed towards the front door, which was only a few feet away from her. Only a few more inches to go…

A sudden creak that was caused by the floorboards made her freeze. In fear, she glanced down a hallway to her left.

_Crap! _ She nearly hissed, _Dear God help me, because I am dead if mom and dad wake up!_

She remained looking down the dark hallway. She didn't dare move any of her muscles, as she might cause another unintentional noise to be made. After a few seconds, she heaved a muffled sigh of relief. _Good. They didn't wake up._

Carefully, she plucked the house keys off a hook embedded into the wall near the door. With no small amount of caution, she slowly opened the front door. She quietly shut behind her, ensuring that no noise was made.

The instant she stepped out into the pouring rain, she broke into a sprint. She constantly cast gazes down at the device in her hand in order to check her location.

After crossing a few blocks, she came to where the cursor on the device indicated. She glanced down at the device, up, and then down again.

_This can't be right._

In front of her was a rather dark alleyway. Logic told her that going into those kinds of places only caused trouble, but whatever the device was trying to lead her to was in there.

So…

She did the exact opposite of what any sane person would do. She went into the alleyway.

The young girl constantly glanced at the area around her. The alleyway made her edgy. And it didn't help that she would rather be back and safe in bed instead of soaking wet and cold.

In short, this whole endeavor was stupid.

But she ignored her common sense and kept going. Eventually, she reached the end of an alleyway, which contained only a dumpster pushed against its back wall. A small lump was lying against its base, which she presumed was a bag of trash that didn't make it into the trash container.

With a sigh, she shook her head in frustration. Of course. She should have known better than to trust a device of unknown origin.

As she turned to leave, a low groan was emitted from the dumpster. Or rather, the trash bag at the dumpster's base.

She whipped around and stared at the odd lump. _Wait…_ she thought, _That's not a trash bag._

Indeed, what she thought was a trash bag was not. The object's size should have tipped her off, but it was so dark that she passed it off as a trash bag in her arrogance. As she stared longer at it, she could vaguely see the surface of the bag rise and fall, almost like it was breathing.

Against all sane trails of thought, she wandered closer. _Holy crap. This thing's got fur!_

The odd being in front of her, as she'd observed, had fur, but she couldn't distinguish what color of fur it was. Her mind kept going from black to purple as possible guesses, not counting the spots of what appeared to be white fur on other parts of its body.

_I wonder if it's soft…_

Her curiosity got the better of her. She leaned forward with the intent to just brush her fingers across the being's fur, but before she could, the creature's eyes snapped open.

The girl jerked back as weary yellow eyes locked with her crystal blue ones. After a moment or two, she found herself growing strangely calm. The rain pounding on her back and the fatigue that threatened to claim her faded in an instant, as did the rest of the world.

She was released from her trance when the creature began to move about. She was on the alert again, but her apprehension turned to pity as the odd being collapsed onto its belly.

Swallowing her fear, she bent down next to it. "Hey," she whispered softly. Her fingers settled on the odd red gem on the creature's forehead, "don't move. You're hurt."

Yellow eyes locked with hers once again. The creature's mouth opened, and for a moment, she was afraid it was going to bite her.

"W-who…are you?" it rasped.

She was lucky her jaw didn't drop. That was unexpected.

She swallowed. "I-I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help."

The creature's head tilted. "Y-you are?"

The young girl nodded. "Yeah. Can you stand?"

The creature nodded and slowly began to attempt to stand again. This time, she assisted it by hooking her hands under its arms.

Once it was on its feet, she got a look at how big it was. The creature was at least up to her chest, and she was pretty sure it wasn't even standing erect.

She also took note of other features, such as its black claws and stubby black wings.

"C'mon, my house is this way."

So, with step after painful step, the duo made its way back to the girl's house, each with no idea of the adventure that awaited them.

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><p><strong>AN: I've always wanted to write a Digimon fanfiction. Now I have my chance.**

**Anyways, my name is Eclipse2012 and I am new to the Digimon archive. I normally hang in the Megaman archive, which is also where I have a story of mine going on.**

**Anyways, please leave me a review of your thoughts on this little prologue. I honestly can't say much, especially sine I'm still a bit of rookie when it comes to writing. But I try my best, and that's all I can do.**

**As a heads up, my update schedule is very erratic, and updates can range anywhere from a few days to a few weeks due to school and out of school interferences. So please, be patient with me.**

**And also, while I accept constructive criticism, I do not tolerate flaming, whether it be to me, or any other author. So if you don't like this story, don't review! It's that simple.**

**On that note, this is Eclipse2012, signing off. **


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